▷ Winrar vs 7zip: which is the best compressor

Although it is true that Windows has a compression tool almost always, we must also recognize that it does not do a very good job. The ZIP format is not exactly the one that offers the most compression, nor the easiest to work with. Although it is the most widely used and the most compatible with absolutely all programs and operating systems.

We have set out to test two very frequently used programs on Windows operating systems. We will have the objective of comparing its benefits, and see which gives us better compression rates and other features such as security and performance.

The two programs have compatibility between them, so the files that we create in one will be compatible in the decompression through the other.

What do we look for in a compression software

Any user looking for compression software should look at what we consider to be the most important details of this type of software.

Make it free: there is no point in installing paid software when we already have free software in our system, so this requirement is important. Compatibility: when we have a compressor, we also want it to be able to decompress other files that we download or that they give us. If not, there is no point in having one. And we will also want it to be compatible with the platform we work on, be it Windows, Mac or Linux. The more you compress, the better: compression software has to do what it promises, and it is to compress files as much as possible. That weighs little: to save space on our disk, it is best to find a tool that has little weight both in the installation and in the executable file. Speed: this in part, will depend on the CPU we have in our team, but it will also depend on the software in question and the compression algorithm used. Make it safe: finally, another of the most sought-after features is the possibility of adding a protection password to the file that you have compressed.

WinRAR vs 7-Zip

Let's see then all these aspects that we have discussed in each of the programs that we will compare. Let's start

Availability

In this section we will see the availability of these programs for their acquisition.

WinRAR is a software developed by Eugene Roshal and distributed by the Ron Dwight company. It has a history of more than 20 years in the field of compression. This software is available as a 40-day free trial version. After these, each time we open the program, a window will appear for us to buy it. Despite this, it will offer exactly the same functions as during the trial period, that is, it is paid, but we can have it indefinitely in our team, being perfectly functional.

7-Zip is a compressor software created in 1999 by Igor Pavlov, so it also has a long journey. It is completely free and distributed under the GNU LGPL license. This means that this software is free to use, without a trial version or anything like that.

What we get out of this, because we have a free program such as 7-Zip and another that is paid, but with unlimited use without the need for a license, so we can determine that the two are in similar conditions.

Only if you are a company, the use of WinRAR must be under a paid license.

Compatibility

Let's see now the compatibility section of each software and the supported formats.

WinRAR is available for both Windows and Mac, FreeBSD, Linux and OS / 2 platforms. In addition, it has 32 and 64 bit versions. The supported compression formats are: RAR, RAR4 and ZIP

The formats that WinRAR is capable of opening are the following: RAR, ZIP, CAB, 7z, ACE, ARJ, UUE, TAR, BZ2, BZip2, TAR.BZ2, TBZ2, TB2, JAR, ISO, GZ, Gzip (GNU Zip, tar.gz,.tgz, tar.Z, tar.bz2, tbz2, tar.lz, tlz), LZH and LHA, Z. In addition you can also create executable files in.EXE

7-Zip will be available for Windows, GUN / Linux, MacOS and DOS systems. You can compress in the formats: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, WIM and XZ. It also has the ability to create executable files in 7z.

As for the formats that you can unpack, they will be the following: ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, WIM, XZ, RAR, CAB, Arj, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB, LZH, SPLIT, CHM, ISO, NSIS, VHD, NTFS, MBR, GPT, HFS, MSI, VDI, VMDK, FAT, EXT, UDF.

As a conclusion of this section we clearly see that both programs are compatible in terms of the ability to decompress files. They also support the main compression formats, such as ZIP, GZIP, Tar.gz, CAB, ISO and JAR, so we will practically have full compatibility.

7-ZIP compression options that are more numerous than those of WinRAR stand out. For their part, both programs are available for the main operating system platforms.

Compression rates and time

This will undoubtedly be the most important section. What compression software should do is compress. We will test both programs with their strongest compression format and maximum capacity. In this way we will see how long it takes to compress a 111 MB directory and how much the final file occupies.

The equipment used for compression is a 2 GHz Intel i5 4310U

WinRAR

Format: RAR4 maximum compression rate.

Elapsed time: 24.12 s File size: 95.5 MB

7-Zip

Format: 7z, Ultra compression and automatic options for the maximum compression rate according to the compression algorithm.

Elapsed time: 35 s File size: 91.5 MB

We can determine that the compression of 7-Zip is significantly better than that of WinRAR, although it has also taken more time to complete the process, just over 10 seconds.

Installation file weight and installation directory

In this section we can check two measures, on the one hand, how much the executable file of the program installation weighs, and how much it weighs once it is installed on our computer.

The WinRAR executable after download has a weight of 3.10 MB. Once installed in our system it occupies a space of 7.55 MB.

As for 7-Zip, the executable file weighs 1.7 MB and the installation directory 5.13 MB. That is, practically nothing compared to other programs, and almost half less than WinRAR.

In both cases we have used 64-bit versions for installation and testing. Despite the fact that the weights are minimal and negligible, 7-Zip has obtained better results.

Security

We now turn to the security section, in which we must say that both programs have the ability to encrypt their compressed files and protect them with a password

On WinRAR's part, we can encrypt files using the AES-128 method, while 7-Zip allows encryption of up to AES-256. So the encryption of 7-Zip is undoubtedly better and in this respect it beats WinRAR.

Other features

To finish, we will give some details about both programs to somehow complete the information on each of them.

WinRAR:

Ability to repair corrupt files. Has a file explorer to navigate directly through the operating system. Ability to create self-extracting SFX and.EXE files Very complete and well designed interface Has 32 and 64 bit versions

7-Zip

It has a file explorer It can make self-extracting files in 7z format It is also available in 32 and 64 bit version It has an intelligent compression algorithm that automatically detects the best configuration to achieve the smallest possible file size

Final results

Well, as we have seen during this article, that the benefits of both programs are quite similar. As for variety of features and options, both compressors are similar, although 7-Zip does not have the possibility to repair corrupt files.

But we've also seen that the evidence is tilted pretty much all in favor of 7-Zip. In addition to being completely free software, it also has better compression rates. To this we must add a greater encryption power than WinRAR and a greater breadth of supported file extensions, both for compressing and decompressing. Finally we have seen that the space occupied on the hard disk is better by 7-Zip.

Another powerful tool that 7-Zip has is the smart compression algorithm, which determines which is the best compression parameter setting for the file. Although it is true that it takes longer, we can reduce this if we want through the compression options.

So for us, based on testing, 7-Zip is a better compression tool for Windows systems than WinRAR

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For you, which is the best compressor? Tell us what you think about WinRAR, 7-Zip or another different program.